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The Politics of Archaeology and Biblical Tourism

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The Politics of Archaeology and Biblical Tourism UNIVERSITEIT GENT FACULTEIT POLITIEKE EN SOCIALE WETENSCHAPPEN The Politics of Archaeology and Biblical Tourism A case study of “the City of David” in Silwan Wetenschappelijke verhandeling Aantal woorden: 18.384 Robin De Boeck MASTERPROEF MANAMA CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT PROMOTOR: PROF. DR. Christopher Parker COMMISSARIS: . Dorien Vanden Boer ACADEMIEJAAR 2014– 2015 ABSTRACT In Silwan, een dorp dat deel uitmaakt van het door Israël illegaal bezette Oost Jerusalem, is een niet-gouvernementele organisatie met de naam Elad al jaren bezig met een archeologische site om te vormen tot een toeristisch trekpleister. Door het gebruiken van een “wetenschappelijke” discours omtrent archeologie, en een “economisch” discours omtrent toeristische ontwikkeling, zijn deze religieus fundamentalistische kolonisten in Silwan in staat om de koloniale realiteit en hun nationalistisch religieuze gedachtegoed te verbergen voor het bredere publiek. Archeologie heeft een zekere geschiedenis van misbruikt te zijn geweest voor nationalistische, kolonialistische, kapitalistische en religieuze doeleinden. Deze ‘narratieve’ wetenschap is niet zo neutraal als sommige academici en het brede publiek zou willen geloven. Een plek omvormen tot een archeologische site is op zich een politieke daad. Welke laag het belangrijkste wordt geacht is een subjectief gegeven, en reflecteert dus ook een zekere politieke keuze en doelstelling. De geschiedenis van een natie, haar cultuur en bepaalde locaties inkapselen in een toeristische pleisterplaats is op zich niet louter economisch, maar ook een politieke daad. Dit leidt tot een situatie waarbij een plek die ooit diende als woongebied en openbare ruimte voor de oorspronkelijke Palestijnse bevolking, nu onder controle is van religieuze Israëlische kolonisten. 2 Table of Content 1. Introduction p 3 2. Methodology p 5 3. The politics of archaeology p 7 3.1 What to do with the past? P 7 3.2 Archaeology and nationalism p 9 3.3 Archaeology and colonialism p 15 3.4 Archaeology and the Bible p 19 3.5 Archaeology and mass tourism p 23 4. Archaeology and biblical tourism in Occupied East Jerusalem p 24 4.1 A biblical Disneyland p 25 4.2 The other side of the tourist site p 31 4.3 A tale of two cities p 34 4.4 Digging deep p 37 5. Conclusion p 40 Bibliografie p 43 3 1 Introduction “Yesterday is History, 'Tis so far away - Yesterday is Poetry - 'Tis Philosophy - Yesterday is mystery - Where it is Today While we shrewdly speculate Flutter both away” Yesterday is History, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 1 The poem above illustrates two basic facts about history: the past is forever shrouded in mystery, inherently unknowable in its complete form, and therefore any attempt at reconstruction creates a form of discourse. It is considered the scientific duty of historians and archaeologists to construct such discourses about the past based on material evidence that exists in the present. This evidence, documents and material objects, have received their historical value first and foremost because they have outlived their original purpose and escaped complete destruction. Any reconstruction of the past is therefore based on very fragmentary evidence, of which the scarcity increases the further one attempts to go back into time. This means that every single discourse about the past is influenced by the environment in which it was created, as by the worldview of the person(s) who made and/or commissioned the reconstruction. It’s also very important to note that every discourse about the past is not only inherently incomplete and ideologically charged, it also always serves a certain purpose or different purposes. It is the aim of this paper to thoroughly analyse the different political usages of material relics from the past within a well defined part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, namely the exploitation of the archaeological remains located in the Occupied East Jerusalem suburb of Silwan. Located just outside the walls of what is commonly referred to as “the Old City” of Jerusalem, these archaeological remains serve a complex multitude of political purposes within the present conflict. Simply by naming this location “the City of David”, the contemporary space becomes identified with a very specific historical/biblical space, masking the contemporary reality by covering it with selective images of the past which happen to serve an Israeli-nationalist discourse. This is similar to the Western practice of using terms such as Mesopotamia and Near East as geographical areas for historical research, supplanting contemporary geographical categories like Iraq, the Levant or Mashrek. This practice has clear colonial ancestry and purpose, namely separating the native population from the historical heritage that surrounds them, allowing their history to be weaved into the grand narrative of “the rise of Western civilisation”, which subsequently legitimated 1 http://hellopoetry.com/poem/4071/yesterday-is-history/ 4 Western ownership and control over these archaeological remains and the countries in which they were located.2 As George Orwell wrote in his visionary dystopian novel 1984 “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past”.3 In Silwan, Jewish settlers from the rightwing Israeli NGO Elad are in control of archaeological remains and their representation towards the global public of mass tourists. This contemporary situation did not originate in a vacuum but is the direct result of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and its surrounding villages in 1967, and subsequent Israeli policies in this newly acquired territory. From the viewpoint of International Law (UNSCR 242)4, this annexation was and remains illegal and East Jerusalem should therefore be viewed as illegally occupied Palestinian territory. Since the 4th Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory5, any Israeli citizen who chooses to live in this area should be considered an illegal colonist or settler. However this is not how the Israeli state views the situation. According to the official Israeli perspective since 1980, there is only one Jerusalem and it is considered an integral part of the state of Israel functioning as its eternal and exclusive capital. The most obvious problem with this viewpoint is that it doesn’t match the reality on the ground, since Palestinians still have an overwhelming demographic majority in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem. Several official policies initiated by the Israeli state and the Jerusalem Municipality are clearly aimed at altering the current facts on the ground in order to turn its own legislative fiction, of an undivided Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of a Jewish Israeli state, into an undisputed reality.6 It is this overarching political goal, of trying to alter the demographic realities in Occupied East Jerusalem in favour of Jewish Israeli settlers, which guides the activities of both Elad and Israeli public authorities in Silwan. Having identified the Judaization of East Jerusalem as a common goal for both religious Israeli settlers and the Israeli state, it is the aim of this paper to thoroughly analyse the political processes and actors involved in the attempt to establish or resist such a new reality. By applying a methodology based on Actor-Network Theory, combining literary research with my personal experiences and interviews on the ground, I shall attempt to clarify the complex web of actor-networks which have manifested themselves around the archaeological remains located in Silwan. Hereby 2 Zainab BAHRANI (1998); Conjuring Mesopotamia: imaginative geography and a world past; in L. MESKELL (ed.); p 162 3 G. ORWELL (1949); 1984; Penguin books Ltd. London; p 40 4 Resolution 242 (November 1967); Especially where it demands “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/7D35E1F729DF491C85256EE700686136 ; Consulted on 31/06/2015 5 Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention (August 1949), to which Israel is a signatory state since July 1951, explicitly states “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”; https://www.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/380-600056; Consulted on 10/08/2015 6 Y. JABAREEN (2010); The politics of state planning in achieving geopolitical ends: The case of the recent master plan for Jerusalem ;International Development Planning Review 32; pp 27–43 F. CHIODELLI (2012); The Jerusalem Master Plan: Planning into the Conflict; Jerusalem Quarterly nr. 51; pp 5-20 5 not only analysing how Israeli private organisations and public authorities closely cooperate in order to attain the same goal, but also how other actors and agencies arise in an attempt to resist this ongoing development, which will simultaneously illustrate the imbalances of power between these actor-networks. Special attention will be given to the complex roles of archaeology and mass tourism within this ongoing political struggle. Both concepts possessing a long history within Western discourse of being represented as activities that symbolise progress, successfully disguising the fact that both practices more often than not involve appropriating land from its original inhabitants. Their impact is always political in the sense that they redefine spatial use and functions, for example from residential space to archaeological or commercial space. In this paper I shall contend that settlers connected to the
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